>> chris: i'm chris wallace and this is "fox news sunday." the 2010 mid term election. will the tea party save the gop or sink it? we will talk with republican strategist karl rove who has come under fire inside his own party for criticizing the gop's newest star. then, a game changer in alaska. after losing in the gop primary, senator lisa murkowski mounts a write-in bid to keep her seat in washington. we'll get reaction from the republican nominee and tea party favorite, joe miller. plus, sarah palin and 2012. with her string of success in the primaries, we will ask our sunday panel if she is now the the frontrunner for the gop

presidential nomination. and with the primary season all but in the books we'll look at what wild week it was on the trail. all right now on "fox news sunday." >> chris: and hello again from fox news from n. washington. this is not the program we were planning to bring you. kristine o'donnell the surprise winner of the republican senate primary in delaware agreed to come here live in washington today to take our questions. however, late friday night her campaign canceled saying o'donnell was exhausted and had to return to delaware. saturday morning o'donnell called me and said this "i got triple booked. i had been invited to go to church and then a picnic. i have to keep my priorities to delaware voters ." so we begin today when someone who has been critical of o'donnell master republican strategist karl rove. you have come under a lot of fire from critics for

criticizing kristine o'donnell. let's watch. >> everything that he is saying is unfactual and it is a same because he is the same so-called political guru that predicted i wasn't going to win and we won and we won big. >> if he had just gotten this mad at democrats during the bush administration who knows how things would be different today. >> chris: add to that everyone from sarah palin and the argument seems to be your part of the republican establishment and you feel threatened by the tea party? >> this is actually about what is a winning strategy. there are serious questions that have been raised about miso'donnell's background, character and previous actions. you can see we will ignore it and on barack obama with's policies and ignore the personal questions and count on

people's animosity towards those obama actions in order to win the election or you can take the perspective that i do which is people are not going to hear these arguments about president obama and his policies and what the democrats are doing in washington as long as these questions are out there. and frankly, here is the data. if you take a look at primaries like those in nevada, kentucky, colorado, missouri, florida, where a republican strong conservative won the primary they immediately jumped to the lead in the polls. in nevada, sharron angle went 11 points of harry reid immediately after she won the primary. in kentucky, rand paul moved 20 points ahead. alaska, joe miller moved 8 points ahead. in delaware, the poll says kristine o'donnell remains 11 points behind the democrat after the primary. we all want to have a republican -- i want to have a company senate. i assume all of the rest of these people want to have a republican senate. the question is what is the best strategy to get there and if you take the strategy i'm

going ignore these questions, fine, go ahead and pursue that strategy. i frankly think a winning strategy requires coming to grips with these questions and explaining them in the most sympathetic way possible so people unblock their lee ears n delaware and start hearing the bigger message. >> chris: kristine o'donnell has canceled on us and another sunday show. her campaign citing exhaustion, she says it is overbooking. there is a tape floating around of her back in 1999 saying that she dabbled in witchcraft. >> if you say that things like not paying your federal income tax and getting slapped with a lien is unfactual you are taking the campaign of we are going to ignore these. depending on this wave of animosity towards president obama? order to get elected. i frankly think she made a

smart decision by not getting on the sunday shows this week. shouldn't have accepted in the first place. she needs to talk to the people of delaware. it is delaware voters not conservatives around the country. it will be delaware voters who determine it and there is as i say resistance. when she wins a stunning upset and incidentally i didn't predict we wouldn't win. she won a stunning upset and she should be yanking the imagination of the people of -- grabbing the imagination of democrats. roy blunt has a ten-point lead building upon the momentum he got from winning the republican prime air in missouri. >> chris: i just want to ask you quickly the new tape in which she said on the tv show politically incorrect in 1999 that she dabbled in witchcraft, how damaging is that? >> in southern delaware where there are a lot of church going

people they will probably want to know what was that all about. she said it on television when she went on the bill marer show and she has to explain it and move on. she can't say these are unfactal and not true and ignore them, go to my website and ignore them. i don't think the people of delaware have or are accepting that as a reasonable explanation and until they could they will be resistant to hearing the bigger broader more important message. >> chris: i want to ask you about the other big political development this weekend and that is the fact that in alaska, senator lisa murkowski who lost to joe miller who is going to be our next guest, the tea party favorite in the republican primary, now announced she will run as a writein candidate. can she win and or can she siphon enough votes away from

the republicans that the democrat will win? >> you have to spell the name exactly, correct. write down the name murkowski and see if you got it right. no, she is going lose. the bigger question is shoe he going to keep a republican from winning? who would have thought, two liberal democrats who follow the obama line represented in the united states senate and that is what she could do as a spoil sport. this is sad and story. i hope the republicans and conservatives in alaska recognize the bigger issue which is defeating president obama's agenda and go for this highly qualified republican nominee. a westpoint graduate and military veteran and graduate of one of the nation's most prestigious law schools. a former magistrate judge and practicing attorney in the state and active republican. he won it fair and square and lisa murkowski should not pursue that sad line that she is pursuing. >> chris: let's step back and take a look at the bigger picture.

in at least 7 states that we count the tea party insurgent beat the establishment republican candidate in senate contests. what is happening in the gop? is it a civil war? a battle for the soul of the party? what is going on? >> no, there is no civil war and let's be careful about tea party favorite. everybody says marco rio i rubs the tea party favorite in florida. it was the guy outside who had endorsed president obama's stimulus bill and running asin' independent and demonstrated his willingness to caucus with the democrats in the senate. he was out of the mainstream. kentucky, rand paul is a strong conservative. he was running against a former democrat who was the secretary of state converted into the republican. and they had a strong difference in message. one man said i'm going to do something about deficits, debt spending and healthcare and the other said elect me because i have a wonderful family and

deserve to have the nomination. message trumps resume every day of the week. message with resume is a powerful combination. >> chris: one of the big issues in the campaign over the next 44 days is going to be the bush tax cuts. i want to ask you as a matter of pure politics how the republicans should play it? should they continue with the argument we are going to oppose all tax increases, we don't want any of the bush tax cuts to last or how do they respond when the democrats and the president say look, you republicans are holding the middle class tax cuts which we can pass today hostage because you want to look out for the rich fat cats? >> look, chris, this is a powerful argument for the republicans and i'm mystified why president is raising this here at the last of the campaign. look at the latest poll they say the republican party is trusted on the issue of taxes

by a 52-36 margin and why? because the republican line is very simple. we should not be raising taxes when the economy is fragile. whistling we are in a recession we shouldn't be raising taxes on anybody and we now have what is it, 32, 33 or 34 democrats in the house who signed ad a letter or made public statements saying all of that. the president doesn't have a bill. he doesn't have a bill that he can pass through either house of the congress, either the house or the senate. why he is bringing this up at the end of the campaign in a way that it is a losing issue and he will not be able to deliver on anything and look as a result add to the narrative of incompetentence. >> i don't have a whiteboard i can put here, you have beaten me in that arms race are you going for another whiteboard? >> i'm going for the whiteboard. >> all the polls i looked at

indicate when people are asked do you want to see the tax cuts for the wealthy extended people by a majority oppose that prospect. so this that -- >> no, that is not accurate. >> oh, my god, here he goes again. >> these are rasmussen numbers. do you want to end the bush tax cuts or extend. extend 56. end all of them, 41. if you want to extend the bush tax cuts all of the bush tax cuts, 51 or extend only those that aren't for the wealthy, 44. it is still a winner even if you put it in the way that the democrats are which is we only want to extend them for the people making less than $250,000 a year. again, that is a losing argument because that is one way to word it,. >> the other way to word it is do you believe that we ought to be raising taxes in a recession or when the economy is fragile and that is a huge winner for the republicans and as i say it has driven over 30 democrats to sign a letter or make a public

statement saying we are in favor of continuing all the bush tax cuts. >> chris: a couple of minutes left. i want to get into another issue with you. when you look at the upheaval in the republican party this year what impact does that have looking forward to the presidential race which is going start on november 3 of this year, the day after of the election? does it shake it up and help a candidate like sarah palin who has been so successful with her endorsements this year and what does it mean for more of an establishment candidate like mitt romney? >> the presidential campaign is going to be several geological ages away. we do have the tea party movement active this year. it is fresh, it is new. a little unsophisticated at times, a little insistent, a little demanding. if you look at each one of these individual races it was either a question of somebody more in keeping with the mainstream of the republican party versus somebody who was not or somebody who had a message versus somebody who didn't.

take alaska. lisa murkowski talke talked abw she was successful in bringing home pork to the state of alaska and joe miller said our country is in such bad state that we have to take your lumps like everybody else. >> chris: you are kind of ducking the question. does this mean that somebody like sarah palin moves up and is now the frontrunner for the republican nomination? >> i think the vice presidential nominee of the party in 2008 if she runs in 2012 is one of the frontrunners. i don't know if she is the frontrunner and again i repeat. look, there are several geological ages to come and go before the race shapes up. who would say that barack obama is going to be the nominee of the democratic party in 2008. people are narrowly focused on 2010. if sarah palin wants to demonstrate her powernd influence, where we started was delaware. she ought to go to delaware and

campaign for her favorite kristine edonnell. if she wants to demonstrate her political power go to delaware and take this candidate and get her across the finish line by campaigning with her in delaware. sarah palin has an enormous magnitude and a big following and let her employ it on the frontlines for the candidate that she cares so much about. >> chris: thank you so much for coming in today. we will have you back as we get closer to the election and i promise i will never interview you again without my own whiteboard. we are not going have the unilateral disarmament ever again. up next we will talk with joe miller the tea party favorite who scocoñ÷

>> chris: one of biggest tea party upsets was in alaska where newcomer joe miller defeated incumbent senator lisa murkowski. and now another twist. murkowski announced friday she will run as a write-incandidate. for reaction we bring in the republican senate nominee joe miller live from alaska. mr. miller, let's start with senator murkowski's announcement that she is going to run the write-in campaign and here is what she said about you in that. >> i listened to alaskans who said lisa, please, please give us that choice because they told me we cannot accept the extremist views of joe miller and we cannot -- [ applause ] >> chris: your reaction to her decision, mr. miller? >> well, obviously, chris, she is not listening very well to the alaskan voters because this primary we had the largest turnout of republican voters in

the history of the state and they said resoundingly, well, 2,000 votes, i guess that is as resoundingly as it gets, that in fact the views we have expressed during this campaign are the views that the future of the state needs to embrace. so, i think that really she has just got a real disconnection from reality in thinking that the voters in alaska are extreme. >> chris: you only beat murkowski by 1600 votes in the republican primary and only lead your democratic opponent by six points, scott mcadams in the latest poll. turnout is going to be a lot bigger in november than it was in the primary. mr. miller, isn't this race now wide open? >> well, the final number is 2,000 but still, yes, you are right. close vote. sure, turnout is going to be important but again the views that we have expressed are transferring power back from the federal government to the states, giving alaska an

incredible opportunity to expand its economy especially at a time when our federal government is coming close to bankruptcy. and so that s broad based pill. not an extreme view. not an extreme view that the voters and republican primary her embrace. it puts this state forward and has the capacity to put all of the states in the nation forward. it is one of hope, not one of the despear i despair in the p. >> chris: senator murkowski says that you are an extremist. unemployment benefits. you say that they are unconstitutional? why are they? and the census bureau came out with new figures that indicated 44 million americans are living in poverty and without unemployment benefits millions more would be living in poverty. what would you do for them? >> well, i think the question

is what is the role of the federal government. right now we have grown the federal government into such a size that $13.4 trillion in debt. look at the future unfunded obligation, the entitlement programs by $130 trillion, that is unsustainable and that is just the facts. i think americans recognize that those are the facts. the exciting thing is that americans are looking for answers. alaskans are looking for answers. in alaska, 40% of our economy is some what derived from the federal government. if we continue to say that things got to continue the way they are the expansion of the government which is unconstitutional in many ways is the wave of the future, it is a dead end road, particularly for that state because of that impending bankruptcy and for the nation as a whole. >> chris: i'm not sure you answered my question. why are unemployment benefits unconstitutional and in a tough economy and recession and a jobless recovery, what are you

going to do for the 44 million people living in poverty? >> i think what you need to look at is the context. we had an extension of unemployment benefits several weeks ago which is beyond what we had in the past in this country. what we have in the country is an entitlement mentality. not just at the individual but even at the state level that if all goes wrong it is the federal government's role to get in there and provide for the general welfare, to basically provide for the solvency particularly of states and other entities, auto companies, the banks, everything else that fails the government should be involved and bailing out. the constitution provides enumerated powers and i guess my challenge is to anybody that asks show me the enumerated power and then look at the 10th amendment that says if it is not there in the constitution it power that belongs to the state and the

people. 2 does not provide for the all encompassing power we have seen exercised the last several decades. it is what has gotten us into this bank rupturing position. >> chris: there does seem to be in thechange going on across republican party across the country. how do you want to see your party, the gop do things differently in washington? >> i think that the first thing that needs to be done is, again, restricting the growth and reversing the growth of government and in the process transferring power back to the states. for alaska that is extraordinary. here in alaska we have by some estimates 50 billion-barrels of crude, proven reserves. we have on top of that 200 trillion cubic feet of natural gas. we have extraordinary resources and other minerals. we have opportunity to drive the engine of this state, the economic engine of this state in such a way that no longer would federal funds necessarily

be required. obviously there is a period of transition that takes place but we have an opportunity and one that can drive i believe the whole economy of the united states just because of the extraordinary resources there. if we continue to have the heavy hand of government put down the state of alaska so it can't get ahead economically we will continue to have the same sort of dead end road that has basically been what senator murkowski has voted for in the eight years she has been in the stat. it is one that has no answer for the future. >> chris: i'm asking more than just about alaska. how would you like to see the gop handle things differently in washington on issues that affect the whole country? >> but chris that is the point. what is good for alaska is good for the country. transferring power from the federal government to the states provides opportunity to allstates, not just, alaska. you know, we are a democracy, a diverse country. each one of the states has the opportunity to create solutions

themselves particularly when we face the significant challenges we have as a country. it is an opportunity for all of to us look back at what the founders envisioned. lots of different people and lots of different states and making decision. >> chris: are you saying social security and medicare should be handled by the states for their own citizens and not be a national responsibility with a national program? >> chris, i'm glad that you asked about that. the same thing as with unemployment compensation, too. we have a contract between the people and the government and right now the government has been broken. social security for example. i'm 43. i paid into the system. that money has been stolen from me. i know that my parent ares who are on social security have to continue to receive it. it is their primary source of income. i grew up lower and middle class and my parents are still challenged financially.

our seniors have to have the trust and security. even those getting ready to receive. there was a contract and it has to be upheld. longer term the fiscal insolvency of the nation can't justify it. i think the states are an option. i think making sure i can put my money where the government can't steal it is a critical factor that has got to be considered and if we look at the system and say don't need reform, forget about, it plug our heads in the sand this bankruptcy is going to go away that is entirely irresponsible. that is the failed approach of murkowski and others in the senate right now not giving us solutions but basically telling the american people don't worry about it, everything will be okay despite the fact that we have $13 trillion in debt. >> chris: i want to get into former governor palin who backed you and certainly helped you win with her backing.

do you think that sarah palin is qualified to be president and would you like to see her run? >> you know, i'm running a u.s. senate race right now in the state of alaska and that is what i'm focused on. i have been asked about various candidates throughout the country during this race. that is not my role to comment on those candidacies. my role is to drive forward this campaign and rescue this state from the grip of the federal government that is causing our children not to have opportunity. i moved here 16 years ago. i want to ensure that my children and their children have opportunity and they aren't driven down this road of bankruptcy in such a way that they lose the opportunity for the american dream. and that is my focus. that is my charge and i'm not going to get distracted by questions about other candidates. >> chris: , well, we e. we can always try. joe miller, thank you so much for coming in today and talking with us. good luck in the campaign and we'll talk to you later. >> thank you, chris. >> chris: up next, after a wild week of primaries our sunday panel discusses the state of

the gop and what we should expect in the final six weeks of this campaign.

the small elite don't get us. they call us whacky. they call us wing nuts. we call us we the people. >> chris: kristine o'donnell the new republican senate nominee in delaware at the value voters conference in washington friday firing up supporters. time for the sunday group. bill kristol of the weekly standard. nina easton of fortune magazine. former state department official liz cheney and juan williams from national public radio. bill, let's start with christine o'donnell. before her primary win on tuesday your weekly standard

had run not one but two stories about her this month raising questions about her honesty and i think it is fair to say her mental stability. now, we have the campaign canceling her appearance on "fox news sunday" because of the exhaustion. the new tape from 1999 newly released about dabbling in witchcraft. how deep are your reservations with christine o'donnell. >> i think if i were in delaware i would be in chinad to vote for her in the general ele. i think she will have a tougher time winning than mike castle will it. mike castle though much more moderate than i am is an impressive person. christine o'donnell doesn't have the backing that other candidates have. christine o'donnell has been a bit of a flake in the past but may well be able to persuade the voters that that is passed and now she is running and

let's see how she performs the next six weeks. karl rove stressed she is running 11 points behind against the democrats. george bush lost delaware by an average of 11 points in 2000 and 2004. mcclain lost by 24 points. 11 so bad that she is 22 points behind. if she can say look, i have grown up and i'm a serious person and if you want someone to vote against the obama agenda i'm your person she can make a competitive race for it. i think castle would have been a stronger candidate and i would have voted for castle. i'm curious to see what happens in delaware now. >> chris: nina? >> massachusetts at this point in this special election to fill ted kennedy's seat six weeks out scott brown in a state that is 3-1. scott brown who is an empty suit that posed nude in the center fold of cosmopolitan and

you see what happened there. delaware if you look at the voting the majority of people in delaware support repealing obama care and support tax decreases over spending in order to create jobs. this is ife fertile territory. sharron angle is an example where everybody wrote that race off. that race in nevada is now tied. chris liz i'm kind of fascinated. why has the race seized the republican party, this personality so the degree it has and why has karl rove come under such fire from other republicans, conservatives for criticizing her. >> at the end of the day we all like to talk about is karl under attack. i imagine you would be hard pressed to find a single voter in delaware who is going to vote based on whether karl is

under attack. what is going on here is substance and policy. for us in washington to talk about who is up and who is down and is there is civil war in the party i think misses the fundamental critically important phenomenon of the substance of the rise of conservativism across the country. and certainly it is happening in the republican party but not just in the republican party. you see a majority of independents say they are conservative. they believe in small government and small taxes and want fiscal responsibility. you look at the race in florida and see in florida a person in marco rubio who people said well, he is noting if to be able to take on charlie crist and rubio will be out. that is not happening. voters are saying that we don't like the direction that this president is taking us in and we want to change. the tea party i think is a very effective voice at the center of all of that. >> chris: here is where i disagree with you. the tea party is not just speaking about the obama administration and democrats.

they are also speaking about the direction that the gop is taking. i think simply to say this is a conservative wave is to miss the point that it is also an antiestablishment wave against some of the current establishment of the republican party. >> i don't think it misses that point. i think that the tea parties are by no means saying we are republicans. i think they are conservatives. now, it tends to be the case in my abouten that those conservative values are more effectively escaped spoused generally by republicans but republicans who are going to espouse the sta status quo andp president obama on cap and trade are going to get voted out just as well as the democrats will. >> chris: at least 7 states that we counted te tea party candidate candidates beat the incumbent candidates.

>> so much money that is funding the tea party clearly now is coming from outside of the republican establishment. some of it coming from i guess the healthcare industry some from the oil industry. they are all angry with barack obama. they overdosed with the anger at barack obama and it stirred up things to the point where i think the establishment has lost control and the tea party is now in control in terms of picking candidates and when i hear you talking about o'donnell. it is amazing to me. o'donnell has trouble with taxes. her academic credentials, paying for school, paying her own mortgage. someone with no record and when you start to talk policy obama is unamerican. she wants to do away with the education department. she is someone who says her jobs plan for america is simply cut the capital gains tax. i think the voters of delaware,

more independents than democrats and more republicans than independents. i think they are go willing to give republicans a chance but they say this is fringe and this is extreme and that is the problem across the country. >> o'donnell may be a bit too far and delaware delaware is not the state to nominate someone with a strong conservative message. when the republican party was the kind juan liked where the establishent wament was in chad everything was quiet, february 19th when rick santelli launched the tea party so to speak with his rant on tv, they lost by more than ten points in 2008. how to they are ahead in the national congressional route by 7 points. about a 16 point swing. coincided with the huge amount of tea party activism and all the upsets. republicans at the time if you

looked at the standard forecast in middle 2009 they might pick up a few house seats or one or two senate seed seats and now look like they might pick up 50 or 60 senate seats. >> chris: don't you think barack obama and the performance of the democrats had a lot to do with that, too? >> not everything. the sense there is a new republican party and citizen activism and it is not with all due respect to the former leaders, the bush, dole, mccain republican parties, you are not simply voting for the old guy who messed things up and the republican congress was kicked out in 2006 or as much as i like them personally some people in the bush administration. voting for a new set of republicans and newly energized. i think that is a big plus for republicans. >> it has to be a plus because it energized the republican base. >> the energy -- how can you say for the the. >> the energy for the last year has come from the tea party. >> chris: let juan briefly go. >> i think that in fact it as big benefit if you look towards the fall that republicans are energized and much more likely

to turn out voters than democrats. if you start to say wait the election is not today it is in several weeks and americans including many independent swing voters who have been leaning republican until now will start to hear about the kinds. joe miller talking about unemployment benefits unconstitutional. oh, my god. >> chris: one of the fact in setting up this week. turns out in all of the statewide races in the primaries across the country 4 million more people voted for republicans than for democrats. the lowest turnover ever for democrats and highest for republicans since 1970. the republicans have got something going on. >> the tea party candidates could have taken this outside of the republican party and could have seen a third-party movement. instead they kept it inside the party and that is -- it befuddled the establishment leaders and created a party inside the party that could

have existed outside. >> as long as juan and others part of the liberal elite establishment referred to people with strongly held common sense values as lunatics, the republicans will do very well in this election. >> i don't hear common sense, liz. i don't hear common sense. >> chris: take it to the break, guys. sarah palin with more successful endorsements and a big speech in iowa. we will ask our panel is she now the frontrunner for the republican presidential nomination?

if the american people were to be ready for someone who is willing to take shake it up and get back to time tested truths

and help lead our country towards a more prosperous and state future if they happened to think i was the one if it were best for my family and our country i could give it a shot. >> chris: sarah palin opening the door a bit wider for the possibility she may run for president in 2012. back now with the panel. before we get to sarah palin's pressial prospects, look at this campaign. endorsed christine o'donnell and she won and palin has backed 36 candidates in contested primaries this year. many long shots. 25 have won and 11 have lost. how much clout does sarah palin have in the republican party right now? >> i think more than any other single person. awfully impressive. and she backed some losing candidates and people who didn't have a chance in the maryland governor's race for example but no, she is a real

force to be reckoned with and that statement you played that looked like someone who is more inclined to run than would not i would say for president. >> nina? >> on one hand defies the laws of political gravity in a lot of ways. look at the kind of work you would have to put into iowa, all the hard dogged work the candidates have to to. i think she probably won't have to. 100% name i.d., very popular. i do think it is a mistake to think that sarah palin owns the tea party movement. the thing about the tea party movement it is not like barack obama and how he generated all of this enthusiasm and grassroots support and basically a movement behind him when ran for president. i think in the case of the tea party it is radically decentralized and doesn't glom on to one person. the recent polls i saw shows that sarah palin was not overwhelmingly the lead candidate for president. she is very popular but whether

even the tea party will go en masse and support her for president is hard to know. so i think you have to look at the tea party differently. it is not about one person. >> chris: all right. we are going to talk 2012 politics. i don't want the rove waffle but it being a geological period before we get to them. liz. that. >> well, it is. >> that is a copout. it she now the frontrunner for the republican nomination? >> we don't have a frontrunner and it is -- the fact that she deserves a huge amount of credit in addition to the things that bill and nina have said the fact that i think she has inspired republican women to throw their hat in the ring and given voice to the conservative values that a majority of americans share. she is powerful and will be a

force to be reckoned with if she decides to run but 2012 is a long way from now and a lot will depend upon do the republicans take control in november and if we do take control what do we do with that control? do we produce and perform and keep our commitments to the voters. and it will depend on barack obama. >> chris: let me do a quick follow-up with you. do you think she has begun to answer the substance question of whether she is up to be president? >> i do. i think the fact that she is playing in the critical debaits that matter so much to the american people goes a long way towards doing that. the other point i was going to make, chris is it matters what president obama does after 2010 too. if f. there is a ground swell and shift of control in the house and possibly the senate. if president obama listens to the american people and begins to reverse course i think that makes the landscape 2012 different. i think it is unlikely that he will do that but strange things

have happened. there are a lot of unknowns in terms of what is going happen in 2012. >> chris: juan? >> the majority think that sarah palin is unqualified to be president. doesn't have the substance. people find her interesting, very attractive. she quit as governor of alaska and i think she defied political gravity by in fact surmounting that which i think is an obstacle for people who want a fighter who stays in the trenches. she has produced all this antiobama rhetoric. the american people ultimately will say when you look at the republican candidates right now people of political substance like mitch daniels or hailey barbour in mississippi. they have more substance but not one of them is in a position to challenge barack obama. president obama in the white house would be celebrating to have -- >> chris: i want to get the

republican race, not into the democrats. let's put up a list, a graphic that we have. this is beyond palin of the conventional wisdom list of gop contenders besides palin. mitt romney. tim pawlenty. governor of minnesota. haylehailey barbour, mississip. jim demint. certainly other people we could put up like mitch daniels. bill, to the degree that the republican primary voters have indicated that they are looking for something different in the republican party, how does this scramble with 2012 republican presidential race? >> well, it scrambles it. i think it won't be the usual situation of nominating the next in line or next senior person in the lines of bob dole or john mccain. right now, palin is the frontrunner. it i she has a slightly better chance than any one else. not an odds on favorite.

goes off with better odds than any one else. if i had to do win, place and show. i would say sarah palin, mitch daniels and paul ryan. if i could make my trifecta bet i would bet on them. >> chris: you are saying all the conventional names we had in there, that they are going to go for somebody none of the above? >> those people could also win and they are impressive politicians in their own right and they are good governors. and former governors like romney and pawlenty. even somebody governing successfully like mitch daniels. paul ryan will probably be chairman of the house budget committee. he will be articulating the republican and set forth the republican budget and articulating the republican national vision against president obama and then palin who is impressive. this will shock you but i could be wrong that one of those three will not be the nominee.

>> chris: a totally ungenuine caveat. nina? >> what kept going through my mind is the problems each one of them has. there is so many problems that each of the candidates have as well as potential. i say it is a geologic time and it has to play out. >> chris: bill is saying that credentials and establishment and seniority in the party aren't going to count for very much. it will be more about ideas. >> much more about ideas. much more about how we deal with -- look at the issues that are coming up down the road. entitlements. entitlement reform. how we deal with the deficit. i agree that paul ryan will be at the center of that. i'm not sure he is going be a presidential candidate but i agree that he will be shaping that. how these candidates are able to articulate that and ride that sense of anger and keep in mind one of reasons people are

angry at the gop establishment is spending and the the bailouts. i think that is going continue to play out in the next year. >> liz? >> i think both things are true. i think it is forever from now. i mean look at where we were in november of 2008. nobody would have think -- >> chris: we got that. >> i think it is also true that -- i want to talk about that a little bit more. no, i think it is also true that in fact ideas and substance and policy will matter this time and maybe so so than any previous republican nomination. >> chris: who steps up? >> i think mitch daniels is a clear very interesting potential frontrunner. paul ryan is interesting. i think you will have people who emerge after the 2010 elections as real challengers. fascinating governors out there. chris christy is terrific. >> chris: under 20 seconds. >> the fact is if you ask americans about president obama his numbers are going down but he is still in the mid 40s.

if you ask. >> chris: but we are talking about the republican pressial presidential nominations. >> all of the republicans you are mentioning have nothing. that is why people are so -- >> chris: say goodbye, juan. >> adios, amigos. >> chris: check out the latest edition of panel plus where we talk about the geological difference between now and the 2010 election. we will post the video before noon eastern time. time for some of your comments. kevin o'brien sent this about our interview with austan goolsbee. i disagree with almost everything he had to say but i find myself liking him. i love a great debate and i love to see people who can clearly articulate and support their decisions. chuck baker from north carolina liked our other guest. straightforward good old fashioned common sense.

keep your comments coming to our blog, wallace watch at foxnewssunday.com. up next in a wild week of politics, we go on the trail.

people thought we had no shot. i was two points ahead in the general election.

>> it is clear that they have the upper move in the republican primary electorate. that is not the general election. >> i'm honored that the race received so much national attention. i'm not counting on the national media to vote for me on november 2. i'm asking all of you to vote for me. >> i don't want the majority back if we don't believe anything. i came into the senate and we had 55 senators and a large majority in the the house and republican in the white house and frankly we didn't do what we said we were going to do. >> we have to be looking as the races develop where we think the best opportunity for pickups are and that is where we will be spending the money. >> this is good timing because we have six, seven weeks away before the mid terms and that is enough time. it allows some time for the party hiarchy to get it this. they better buck up or stay in the truck. >> chris: and we still have 44 days until the election. that is it for today. have a great week and we'll see you next "fox news sda